A glance at Graham Parlett’s invaluable catalogue of Bax’s music (OUP: 1999) reveals that the first of the composer’s three numbered violin sonatas (a passionate outpouring from 1910 fanned by the embers of a love affair with a Ukrainian girl by the name of Natalie Skarginska) exists in no fewer than four versions. Bax’s final revision dates from 1945 but this new Naxos collection includes a debut on disc for the original second and third movements that Bax jettisoned in 1915 when he overhauled the sonata for the first time.

In a letter to the violinist May Harrison, the composer referred to the “old slow movement‚ as being rather too juvenile for public performance”, but as a dyed-in-the-wool fan I must say I found it deeply touching to experience Bax’s affecting and exuberant first thoughts, especially when played with such authority and rapt intuition as here.

As for the sonata proper, Laurence Jackson and Ashley Wass mastermind the most exquisitely poised and insightful interpretation I’ve yet encountered; never have I been made so aware of the links with Szymanowski’s Myths and First Concerto (a reminder that the violin part of all three works was edited by the great Polish virtuoso Pawe Kochanski).

Similarly, the two-movement Third Sonata of 1927 receives exceptionally persuasive and articulate treatment: the first movement’s songful second subject can seldom have sounded more bewitching, and the toe-tapping Irish revelry in the finale is projected with thrilling abandon by these classy performers (their softer-spoken ASV rivals don’t stoke the fires to anything like the same degree).

The Potton Hall recording is absolutely first-rate to match and, as should be abundantly clear by now, this is a superlative issue; indeed, I’m already itching to hear what Jackson and Wass will make of the magnificently mean and moody Second Sonata.